Today’s Question: How can I determine the level of exposure for images to be posted online? I’ve been told to set exposure until the L [luminance] value in the histogram in Lightroom Classic is between 89 and 93 for white areas in the image. But many images lack white entirely. And of course, the online viewers device settings will affect how bright or dim the image appears.
Tim’s Quick Answer: My recommendation is to optimize photos to perfection based on your calibrated display and not apply adjustments for online sharing (or other digital sharing). This will provide an optimal experience for those who have also calibrated their displays, rather than trying to compensate for the tremendous variation among non-calibrated displays.
More Detail: When preparing a photo to be printed, it can be very helpful to apply adjustments to compensate for the output behavior of the printer, such as by lightening the black point and slightly darkening the white point. In my view these adjustments should be applied only based on specific testing of output conditions, not based on arbitrary rules of thumb.
For digital sharing I don’t recommend applying these types of compensating adjustments. Instead, I recommend optimizing based on an evaluation of the image on your calibrated display, based on your vision and intent for the image.
It is, of course, that many photographers are probably the vast majority of non-photographers do not calibrate their displays. It is therefore quite common for their display to be inaccurate, in many cases being about one exposure stop brighter than your calibrated display. However, in my view it doesn’t make sense to try to compensate for non-calibrated displays.
The way I see it, I’d rather have my images look accurate (based on my intent) for those with calibrated displays. While that means the images won’t look their best for those with non-calibrated displays, my assumption is that this simply puts your images in line with what they’re accustomed to seeing anyway.
So, my recommendation is to optimize your photos based on an accurate digital display, and to not degrade the images based on those who will view your images without calibrating their displays.
